Biggest Age Gaps Between A James Bond Actor And A Bond Girl

There are a few things that everyone thinks about in relation to James Bond – fancy cars, impossible gadgets, the way he likes his martinis prepared, and the fact that he frequently romances much younger women. Each era of 007 has seen its fair share of changes, but one thing that has held true from Sean Connery through Daniel Craig is that "James Bond" movies almost always feature actresses that are at least a decade younger than the man playing Bond. 

In fact, it remained so prevalent that as recently as the release of 2015's "Spectre," it made headlines that Monica Bellucci was to play a rare "older" Bond girl that would be charming the superspy — to which the always outspoken Craig told an interviewer (via NME), "I think you mean the charms of a woman his own age." Of course, Craig's Bond also played opposite several women over 15 years his junior, but he doesn't cast the movies so he can hardly be blamed for that.

The fact of the matter is that every single Bond portrayer has had a significant age gap between himself and one or more of the women who have played one of his beautiful and deadly allies or enemies — or most often, a combination of the two — across the decades-long franchise. As a note, just to keep things consistent, all ages mentioned in this feature were at the time of each movie's release, rather than when it was in production.

While Daniel Craig was shutting down the people making a big deal about the 51-year-old Monica Bellucci being cast in "Spectre," it didn't help his case much that that same movie also had Bond sharing martinis with Madeleine Swann — played by then-30-year-old actor, Léa Seydoux. On the other hand, Craig was 47 when his fourth outing as 007 was released, putting 17 years between the two performers.

Only a select few women have ever got to play Bond girls in more than one film, but Seydoux would later return for Craig's final turn as Bond in 2021's "No Time to Die." At that point, she was 36 and Craig was 53. Since "No Time to Die" is only a few years old, we won't spoil whether or not Seydoux's character survives the movie and if it's possible for her to appear as Madeleine for a third time, but she'd most likely be closer in age to whomever the next Bond was if she did come back. Even though there likely won't be a 20-something Bond anytime soon, new Bonds are at least typically younger than previous versions. 

Roger Moore holds the distinction of being the oldest of all the James Bond actors at the start of his tenure in the role — the actor was already 45 years old when he made his debut with "Live and Let Die" in 1973. Given that his time as the MI6 agent was in the much less progressive '70s and '80s, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Bond girls of Moore's era were still mostly 20-somethings. 

When considering all of the Bond girls from Moore's run of movies, the 18 years that separated him and Maud Adams actually isn't all that bad by comparison. Adams made her 007 film debut at age 29 in 1974's "The Man with the Golden Gun" where she played Andrea Anders, the mistress of that movie's main antagonist, while Moore was 47. 

Adams is another actor that got to play a Bond girl in multiple movies, only she played a different character — the titular role in 1983's "Octopussy" — for her follow-up performance. By that time, Adams was 38 and Moore was 56. Remarkably, it wasn't even his last time playing Bond, which we'll be getting to later on. 

One of the most common debates among "James Bond" fans is which of each actor's movies was the best. Ultimately it'll always come down to individual opinion but in terms of where critics land, 1977's "The Spy Who Loved Me" is the best of the Roger Moore era by a wide margin and among the overall top 10 of the entire franchise (per Rotten Tomatoes). In addition to producing one of the most iconic Bond villains of all time by way of Jaws (Richard Kiel) and Carly Simon's indelible theme song, "Nobody Does It Better," Moore's third Bond film also saw Barbara Bach play the KGB agent, Anya Amasova. 

Bach, who was 31 years old when she played Anya, was 18 years younger than the 49-year-old Moore when "The Spy Who Loved Me" was released. Just a few years later, she got together with one of the few people in the world even more famous and with an even longer career than Bond when she married Beatles drummer, Ringo Starr, and they remain together to this day.

After the divisive Timothy Dalton era that saw the actor only get to star in two "James Bond" films, the franchise took a little time off before relaunching with the hugely successful "Goldeneye" and the beginning of Pierce Brosnan's time in the role. Though it's debatable whether that movie's main Bond girl is Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) or Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), Janssen was a bit closer in age to Brosnan at the time with only 13 years between them. 

On the other hand, Brosnan was 43 years old for his Bond debut while Scorupco was only 25, making their age gap 18 years. All of the main "Goldeneye" actors have the unique distinction of having been immortalized in the beloved 1997 video game adaption of the film for the Nintendo 64, which saw a remastered version released in 2023. Since the remaster uses both actors' faces from the original movie, it gave the 43-year-old Brosnan and the 25-year-old Scorupco the chance to live again in digital form nearly 30 years after they first played their respective roles.

The WGA writers' strike of the mid-2000s affected many television and film productions, including Craig's sophomore "James Bond" film, "Quantum of Solace," in 2008. Still, even for what many consider one of the franchise's weaker entries, it did just fine at the box office and has seen a lot of positive reassessment in recent years when removed from the huge expectations at the time of having to follow up "Casino Royale." 

One person whose opinion of "Quantum of Solace" remains mostly sour is Gemma Arterton, who played agent Strawberry Fields. In a 2020 interview with The Sun, Arterton spoke about how she felt compelled to accept the role at the time because she needed the work, plus it seeming like a no-brainer to jump at the chance to be in a "Bond" movie. "But as I got older I realised there was so much wrong with Bond women. Strawberry should have just said no, really, and worn flat shoes" the actor said when reflecting on her role in the film. Considering she was 22 years old at the time to Craig's 40, putting 18 years between them, it's not hard to see why she feels that way in hindsight. 

While it was both the highest-grossing Roger Moore Bond film as well as the top-grossing "James Bond" movie overall at the time, 1979's "Moonraker" is often cited as the prime example of the franchise's campiness going a little too far over the top. An attempt to capitalize on "Star Wars" hysteria by taking Bond into space, "Moonraker" was also noteworthy in that it marked the final appearance of actor Bernard Lee as M. Lee, along with Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny, who were the only two actors that had been with the franchise since the release of "Dr. No" in 1962.

Getting back to "Moonraker" seeing Bond traditions taken to extreme levels, the main girl has the absurd name of Holly Goodhead. At least the actor who played her, Lois Chiles, was an "older" love interest for the Moore era at 32 — but she was still 19 years younger than the 51-year-old Moore. And given some of the age gaps we've yet to address between Moore and some of his other Bond girls, 19 years doesn't even seem all that big a deal. 

There wasn't a huge difference between Sean Connery and Roger Moore's respective approaches to playing James Bond, and it wasn't until the transition between Moore and Timothy Dalton that the franchise saw its first huge tonal shift. As an answer to how silly and campy Moore's "Bond" movies had gotten, it was decided that 1987's "The Living Daylights" would be a much darker and edgier affair, not to mention feeling much more modern in the face of a franchise that had been largely resting on its original 1960s vibe well into the '80s.

That being said, there is one tradition that Dalton's "Bond" era didn't completely abandon — him being much older than some of his female co-stars. In his second and final 007 movie, 1989's "Licence to Kill," Dalton was 43 years old and therefore had 21 years on Talisa Soto, who was 22 when she played Lupe Lamora. But an even more significant gap was to follow when a then-unprecedented six years passed between "Licence to Kill" and "Goldeneye" — the only other time the franchise has taken that long of a break was the six-year, COVID-fueled hiatus between 2015's "Spectre" and "No Time to Die" in 2021. 

Now we're getting into the age gaps that can be described as multiple decades long. The first time Roger Moore suited up as James Bond was in 1973's "Live and Let Die," which is arguably as well-known for its masterpiece Paul McCartney theme song of the same name as the movie itself. That isn't necessarily a knock on the movie, though — it just happens to have an amazing theme song. 

But in all seriousness, "Live and Let Die" was a bit divisive at the time of release for feeling more like a blaxploitation movie than a "James Bond" sequel, though that fact is also why a lot of people love it. The movie also has a fairly unique Bond girl in that it wasn't necessarily her best-known role, which has been the case for the vast majority of the actors who have taken on the gig.

While definitely the breakthrough performance for Jane Seymour, the actor would go on to have a long career that would include multiple roles that she is now arguably more well known for than playing one-named Bond girl, Solitaire. As previously mentioned, Moore was already 45 years old at the beginning of his "Bond" career, which put him 23 years ahead of the then-22-year-old Seymour.

There have only been two "James Bond" movies that weren't produced by Eon Productions — the original 1967 comedic take on "Casino Royale," and 1983's "Never Say Never Again." What's confusing about the latter is that it featured Sean Connery in the role, returning for the first time since he stepped away after 1971's "Diamonds are Forever." What's even more confusing is that "Never Say Never Again" adapts the Ian Fleming book, "Thunderball," which had previously been adapted into a film of the same name that also starred Connery.

The lawsuits and legal wrangling that led to the making of "Never Say Never Again" — and why it ended up releasing the same year as "Octopussy" — is a story for its own feature. But what matters here is that Connery was 53 years old when he briefly un-retired from playing James Bond. His main Bond girl in the movie was Domino, played by Claudine Auger in the original "Thunderball," but this time Kim Basinger reprised the role. Connery and Auger were 35 and 24 respectively for "Thunderball," putting them only 11 years apart. However, Connery was 23 years older than the 30-year-old Basinger for "Never Say Never Again." 

Interestingly, it still wouldn't be the last time Connery played Bond, as he reprised the role one final time when he recorded new dialog for the 2005 video game adaptation of "From Russia With Love" in what would be one of his final performances.

Capitalizing on the fact that it was released to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the "James Bond" film franchise, 2002's "Die Another Day" included references and Easter eggs to all 19 of the previous 007 movies released up to that point. Some were obvious, such as characters literally speaking the titles of movies, while others were a bit more subtle and required an eagle eye and a well-timed press of the pause button. Unfortunately, all the fun of placing and looking for those references was wasted on what is often called the worst 007 movie of all time. 

It's too bad that Pierce Brosnan had to end his era with such a disappointing entry, and also not fair to the very talented Rosamund Pike that she got stuck being a Bond girl in it. Even worse is that Pike would later reveal in an Amazon Audible Sessions interview (via IndieWire) that she was told she'd have to strip down to her underwear for her audition. Though she was only 23 years old and it was her very first film role, she refused that request but landed the role anyway — where she played double agent Miranda Frost opposite Brosnan who was 49 at the time. That separated them by 26 years, more years than Pike had been alive at that point.

As Roger Moore entered the 1980s and his home stretch playing James Bond, he was already in his mid-50s. But to paraphrase Matthew McConaughey's "Dazed and Confused" character, as Moore got older, his Bond girls seemed to stay the same age. In 1981's "For Your Eyes Only," Moore was 54 years old, an age that no other Bond actor — not even Connery when he came back for "Never Say Never Again" — ever reached during their tenure as the character. And Moore still made two more 007 movies after this!

There were three love interests for Bond in "For Your Eyes Only" including one played by Cassandra Harris (whom Pierce Brosnan has been married to since 1980, interestingly enough), but the main Bond girl in this case was most definitely Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet). At 24 years old, Bouquet was 30 years Moore's junior. Spoiler alert: this only being #2 on this list means that there's an even bigger age gap than that still to be addressed — and, you guessed it, the next one involves Moore as well.

It's almost as if the people behind the "James Bond" movies wanted to really outdo themselves when it came to wrapping up Roger Moore's then-unprecedented 12-year run playing the secret agent. And one of the ways they did that was to cast a literal teenager in the role of Jenny Flex, which would've already been pushing the envelope anyway, but it was especially so when the actor playing opposite the teenager was, by that point, a 58-year-old actor.

In 1985's "A View to a Kill," Jenny Flex was played by Alison Doody, who would appear alongside Sean Connery — also as a love interest of sorts — a few years later when she starred as Dr. Elsa Schneider in 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," but she was at least 23 years old by that point, and only 33 years apart from Connery. The 38 years between Doody and Moore, however, is definitely one for the books. Luckily, despite frequently being considered — and definitely having a name worthy of — a Bond girl, Jenny Flex barely even flirts with Bond, let alone engages in any sort of real intimacy with him. So that's something at least.